Shiver

For Puck's Sake, Book 1

By: Crea Reitan

Narrated by: Shawn K. Jain, Simon Dornet

Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins

Publisher's summary

A touch so intimate, a kiss so deep…

Egon Wolf is on a hockey scholarship but failing at everything else. Knowing he's going to lose his ride if he doesn't get his academic act together, he seeks out a tutor.

Rakesh Aahnu is a dual major and dangerous when bored. What he enjoys more than anything is the challenge of making straight men fall for him before walking away. Just because he can.

Both Egon and Rakesh are about to discover that life has a way of throwing you in the sin bin when you least expect it.

And when faced with an unfamiliar play? All you can do is shiver.

Shiver is an LGBT+ story intended for mature listeners.

©2023 Crea Reitan (P)2023 Podium Audio

The storyline is amazing! I love this book!

This book has dependency, touch starvation, praise, a little possessive. I love the characters, especially Wolfe. So good!

😮‍💨

🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This book was fantastic-freaking-tasting!! Both narrators were amazing!

It’s hot, it’s sexy, it’s a sweet bi awakening. But it’s also heart shattering. I didn’t know the turns were coming because I walked in blind and I’m so glad I did. It was an amazing ride!

loved the voice actors

I love this story, have read it multiple times and every time its new to me. I'm glad I got to hear it come to life 😁

Sweet and hot

A relationship develops between sweet, straight (or so he thought) hockey player Egon and brilliant, gay, cocky grad student Rakesh after Rakesh agrees to tutor Egon to save Egon's scholarship. There are ups and downs, their relationship borders on co-dependent (and may cross the border at some points) but I got such a sweet feeling from it. Overall this was a wonderful book! It's easily a contender for my favorite romance audiobook of the year.

Rakesh is dominant and Egon is submissive, but despite that, this isn't one of those books where you feel as though the characters aren't equals. The sex is hot, and coming from me that's a huge compliment since I normally skip past the sex scenes (weird from someone who reads this type of book, I know). Both characters grow through the novel, but, ironically, Egon, whose sexuality changes (or at least his perception of it does), doesn't grow as much as Rakesh, who comes across as arrogant for the first half of the novel and could stand to be taken down a few pegs. Don't let his attitude in the beginning put you off.

If I had to list any complaints, I'd say the book goes on a little too long. Not that it ever gets boring, per se, I just mean it could have ended a couple hours before it did and still have told a complete story. However, I enjoyed the writing and narration so much that I'm glad it didn't! Also, Egon is a hockey player and the name of the series alludes to hockey, but don't expect very much hockey at all, as Egon is pretty clear from the beginning he has no interest in a professional hockey career. I'm not sure who the characters will be in the subsequent novels in the series, if they're taken from this book at all, since although there were definitely other hockey players in the book, they all sort of blended together a bit for me.

I'm gay, so I'm always curious about the politics of sexuality in m/m romance novels, especially ones written by women who, no offense, are on the outside looking in when it comes to male sexuality. So is Egon bisexual? Gay? Something else? I don't know because the book never really defines it clearly and that's a good thing. Too many gay-for-you novels try to pin down the "straight" character's sexuality and that's a huge mistake in my opinion. Rakesh has one episode where he goes on about how fluid sexuality is, but he's also 100% gay himself and admits that he's being hypocritical, which saved me from docking a star from my review--my sexuality isn't fluid and I always sort of resent when someone tells me that it should be.

The narrators were both flawless. I was not familiar with either of them, but they were easily the match of any bigger name narrators in the m/m genre. Simon Dornet sounds like a cross between Kale Williams and Greg Boudreaux/Tremblay, if that means anything to anyone. I will put this book in my short list of books that I want to listen to over and over again.

Great Narrators and Characters

the voices were well done. I liked them a lot. the story came alive on my mind. Reik (sp?), I loved his overprotectiveness, his praising, his leadership, which may sound corny but he took charge over Egon and that gave off such good Alpha vibes. Egon was cute. wish we got more backstory on each of their families though..

wow

wow so so so good, I love this book 😍 I can't wait to read more from this author thank you 🥰🥰

Damn good!

Loved this!!
Such a good read! This will have you sucked in so quick, a real easy read, lovable mcs, the chemistry between the mls is spot on and of course the spice is scrumptious!
4 / 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️

It’s a no from me.

I don’t even know where to start… there were so many holes. We get zero background or personality development of the MC’s. The relationship is unhealthily codependent for really no reason at all? And the third act break up reasoning made no sense. Egon clearly has some type of mental illness and it isn’t addressed AT ALL. it was just all better when Rakesh comes back? Very unrealistic. Spice was decent but that’s really the only thing okay with this book. Narration was one of the few high points in this. It was beautifully narrated and I would absolutely listen to these narrators again.
This is my first time listening to this author and I definitely think there’s potential, I could very much feel the chemistry between the MC’s, but everything outside of that was just not good. Don’t waste a credit IMO

Disappointed

The performance was cold, angry in tone and aggressive and read like a police report. I just couldn’t finish it.

very okay

I think this had a lot of potential, but the relationship is very co-dependent and have me a lot of icky feelings. And the last where (spoilers) one of the main characters slips into a depression so deep he didn't eat or drink and had to be hospitalized was just... way unbelievable. I've been heartbroken and devastated, but it was so unbelievable unless he had some severe underlying mental illness, which the book never addresses. I normally leave lots of leeway for romance novels, this one just missed the mark.